


A Boy.

by nerdfighter721



Series: Stand By Me [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Dysphoria, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, TW:, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trans Peter Parker, i promise its not all angst just mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 09:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17937047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdfighter721/pseuds/nerdfighter721
Summary: Peter Parker is a male, that's not surprising to anyone that knows him, he's also Transgender, which is a bit more surprising to the recent arrivals in his life. Waking up one morning, he feels a massive bought of dysphoria and needs to do something about it.





	A Boy.

The moment Peter Parker opened his eyes, he knew it was going to be one of the worst kinds of days. He was in Stark Industries, hanging out for a few days while his Aunt May was out of town. Pre her knowing that he was Spider-Man, she used to allowed Peter to stay at home in the apartment - but since the whole superhero thing came to light, she wasn’t a fan of him being alone. Granted, to Aunt May, Tony Stark wasn’t exactly a great second choice - but he was the only choice she had. Given all the faults she sees in him, however, she still knew that the man cared for Peter as much as she did.

Mr. Stark had made a room up for Peter nearly six months ago, and he had stayed there at least once a month since - usually more. Today marked day five of seven staying in Stark Industries, and also Saturday morning. Peter had planned to have a busy day, catch up on homework in the morning, workout session with the Avengers in the early afternoon, MJ and Ned were going to come over to work on a group project after that, then Peter was going to go on patrol later in the evening. All his plans came crashing down, however, when he felt an intense gnawing in his stomach. He was hyper aware of his body, and all the ways that it felt so very wrong. Body too nimble, hips too wide, waist pinched too tight, soft features, a _chest_ , everything felt wrong. Everything _was_ wrong. He was trapped in a body that was biologically female, and while most of the outside world he’s known in his teenage life sees him as a male, his body reminded him that he was not.

Yanking the blankets over his head, Peter’s thoughts spiraled. It had been three months since he had first gotten testosterone. The normal testosterone didn’t work on him due to his enhanced metabolism, and it wasn’t until Mr. Stark caught Peter one late night attempting to make a formula that would work that he even found out Peter was trans. Of course, it all went over well. Mr. Stark convinced Peter that getting Bruce Banner’s help, as well, was for the best, and the three of them finally came across a formula that worked within the week.

 _Three months_ he’s been on testosterone, but when he closed his eyes, he still could see his feminine features - his mind reminding him of all the ways he would never be a man. _Why continue to live if this is how my whole life will be? I’ll always look like a girl stuck in teenage years_ , Peter wondered to himself. _No one will ever really see me as Peter Parker. So what’s the point_? He had seen too many people double take at him, or drop she/her before going to he/him then looking Peter in the face and saying she/her again. It was terrible, and Peter wanted out. He wanted out right now.

 _Aunt May, Mr. Stark,_ Peter then silently reminded himself, _What would they do? If Mr. Stark finds me… Aunt May getting the news…_

Curling into a ball, Peter rubbed his face and forced his brain to go to a different place. Any other place. When it clearly wasn’t going to happen - his brain turning to - _they would be better off without some weird girl pretending to be a boy around them_ \- he knew he had to get up and do something… _anything_ else.

He forced himself out of bed and walked over to his closet, grabbing his binder he pulled it on and pulled a shirt on top of it. Pulling on some baggy sweatpants, Peter left his room and walked into the kitchen. Although he wasn’t a big fan of cooking, it was something that he had to focus on if he wanted anything to be even slightly edible, so he decided that was what he would do. The kitchen was completely filled with all sorts of food, so Peter pulled up a tab of random recipes on his phone. He found a few different things to make, homemade pancakes, a breakfast casserole, Belgian waffles, and croissants with homemade icing.

Of course, it was all very difficult and Peter had to keep pausing in what he was doing to check what an ingredient was, or what the difference was between whisking and beating. All the better, though, because it allowed his mind not to wander. He would say he was about halfway through - casserole was already in the oven, pancake mix was created, waffle iron was warming up - when someone snuck up on him.

“Kid? What are you doing up so early?” Peter jumped at the sounds of Mr. Stark’s voice, he spun around surprised, before realizing who it was.

“It’s early?” Peter asked, his voice croaking as he realized it was the first time he spoke all morning.

Mr. Stark gave Peter a confused look, “It’s seven in the morning - are you okay Pete?”

Peter gave a forced laugh, “Psh, yeah, of course everything’s okay. Why wouldn’t it be okay?” He turned back to flip over a pancake he had just poured onto the hot pan.

“If you’re going to lie to me, you have to be more convincing than that.” Mr. Stark stepped closer, “Seriously, what’s up? It’s a Saturday morning and you’ve been up for possibly hours already.”

“I’m fine, I’m good.” He responded, but he could tell it wasn’t convincing at all. Sighing he turned and looked at Mr. Stark, who had his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised in a very ‘you-need-to-tell-me-what’s-wrong’ look.

“Please don’t question my intelligence by lying, Parker.” Mr. Stark sighed, “Just tell me what’s going on.” He paused, but Peter didn’t move to respond, “Is it school? That Flash kid again? Did you get into a fight with MJ and Ted?”

Peter found his mind wandering back into the dark places again, the thought of school, of Flash hanging the fact that he knew Peter was trans over his head, the thought of all that again - “I DON'T WANNA TALK ABOUT IT!.”

Mr. Stark’s face fell just a bit, in a way that Peter knew that he only got to see on a very rare basis, and that when he realized that he yelled, “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.” He started to reach for him, but Peter ducked out of the way.

Silence fell around them for a moment, and the younger boy took that as his chance to turn around and face the pan. He checked to see how well the pancake was cooking. Finally, barely above a whisper, Peter spoke, “I hate myself and I want to die.”

This time, the silence seemed louder than anything, before Mr. Stark seemed to recover, “No, no no no no, Pete we’re talking about this. You’re talking about this right now.” He moved against the stove so Peter had to look at him.

Taking a shaky breath, Peter shook his head, “I’m not - I’m not _going to_.” He assured his mentor, “I wouldn’t. It’s just - bad day.”

“Then we will sit down and _talk about it_ ,” Mr. Stark responded, “You aren’t going through any of this alone, I won’t let you.”

Peter stepped back, “You know I respect you so much, Mr. Stark, but no. I can’t - I do not have the mental capacity to talk about any of this right now. If I do - if I try right now - it’s a dark place and I’m trying to stay away from it until it passes.” Closing his eyes, Peter exhaled and turned back, “I need to do other things right now, otherwise I may come closer to doing something neither of us could fix.”

Once again, silence covered them, Peter angled himself to face away from Mr. Stark. He couldn’t stand to see whatever expression was on his face, he didn't want to feel like he had failed him. While Mr. Stark knew he was trans, Peter never told him just how terrible his dysphoria really could be. Rarely was it so severe that thoughts crossed his mind, but when it did - Peter needed to get away from it.

After a few minutes of silence from Mr. Stark, Peter sighed and turned towards him, “What-” He was surprised to see that he had moved to lean on a table. Peter knew him well enough at this point that he could tell Mr. Stark was still shaken up, but he was also determined, “I’m not talking, Mr. Stark.”

“Then I will just stay here with you.” Mr. Stark responded, in which a lot of emotions spread through Peter - from anger all the way to relief.

At first, Peter wasn’t sure what to say, before he finally settled on, “Well, if you are going to stay, then can you help out? I need the waffles to start being made in the iron.”

“I can do that.” Mr. Stark nodded, moving to work on what Peter asked him.

The two of them worked in silence, it was a seemingly near identical version to them in the lab, but they were more cautious in the kitchen, more like novice level rather than masters of their crafts. Still, to any outside source, it would look as though they had been cooking for years together.

  


Peter laid in bed for a long time that evening, Spider-Man suit on, earphones over the mask. He wasn’t planning on going anywhere, but the suit helped rein in his over enthusiastic senses, as well as ease his feeling of dysphoria. The suit made it feel as though his body were a completely different shape, more masculine, everything feminine about him seemed to vanish in the suit. If it wasn’t for his strict decision to keep Spider-Man and Peter Parker as two separate entities, he would run around in his suit all the time.

Soft music was playing from his headphones, just enough to keep his mind calm. He could still hear the outside world, but dimly so. After so long, he lost track of time, it could have been a few minutes, or it could have been a few hours. Most of the time Peter spent it looking through different things his suit could do. There were still tons of things that had been programmed in that Peter had yet to have a chance to use, but even as confident as he felt in the suit, he didn’t trust himself to leave the building - he hardly trusted himself to leave the room.

A knock on the door caused him to come back to consciousness, “Who’s there?” Peter asked, but he already knew who it was, he had gotten use to Mr. Stark’s knock.

“It’s me, Pete, can I come in?” He asked from the other side of the door.

Sighing, Peter sat up, pulling off his headphones and mask, “Yeah, come in.” Doing a quick check over with himself, already knowing what Mr. Stark was going to want to talk about, Peter decided his dysphoria had dropped dramatically down to a three when it was at a solid nine this morning. That was a safe area to talk in, he knew that much.

“How are you doing?” Mr. Stark asked, walking over to the edge of Peter’s bed, the young boy made a gesture to say he could sit, “You’ve been in here for three hours, completely silent.” Peter could tell Mr. Stark was taking in the scene, he was wearing his suit, headphones and his mask were cast off to the side of the bed, he could still hear the music from it, but guessed Mr. Stark probably couldn’t.

Peter shrugged, “I’ve had better days, Mr. Stark, but I’m doing fine now.” He averted his eyes, “I’m sorry about this morning… about what I said.”

“Did you mean what you said this morning?”

Biting his lip, Peter watched a small piece of fluff slowly float across this room, “It happens from time to time, I’m sorry you had to see it-”

Before Peter could finish, Mr. Stark reached out to him, before stopping - Peter had pulled away from his touch all morning, “Underoos, Pete - I know I don’t tell you often enough, but I care about you. I told you this early on, if anything happens to you, that would be on me. I want you to know that you have me to talk to, about anything you need. Nothing is too trivial or too intense to tell me, okay?”

“It’s just - it’s -” Peter stopped, trying to catch his train of thought, “Logistically, I know the testosterone is working, all the changes are slow to come, and I’m starting to see them happen. It’s just -” He felt tears starting to come and wished them away, “there’s some days when I wake up and I get trapped in this realization that I’m still stuck in this body. This is my body forever, and at that point it’s seemingly impossible to get out of the reminder that I was female assigned at birth. There will always be some reminder on my body, from surgeries or without surgeries that I’m just _not male enough_.”

At that moment, Tony did hug Peter, and he didn’t pull away, “Listen to me, Peter. You will always be a male to me. Surgeries or not, suit or not, testosterone or not, you will always be male. I know firsthand just how hard your psyche can work against you, and if you need that outside reminder, it’s that you are a guy through and through. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, whatever you need to help you feel more comfortable, I’m here for. Name a price, surgery, medicine, Doctor, and I will get it for you. You deserve for your entire outside to match your entire inside, and want to be with you every step of the way.”

Peter was crying now, which he wasn’t proud of. It wasn’t the first time he had cried on Mr. Stark, though, the first time being when he was discovered making a failed vial of testosterone in the lab and came out as trans to him. At the time, Mr. Stark was slightly worse at what to say, but he’s learned slowly with Peter what the right things were to say. Even if it was hard for Peter to believe sometimes, he had to keep reminding himself.

_I am a boy._

_I am a boy._

I am a boy.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't like putting notes at the start of the story so here's my notes that should have been there: 
> 
> I want to say that I don't know *that much* about the MCU, I've only seen like four of the movies, two of which being because I decided that I would fall in love with Spider-Man. I've read *some* comics, but this is entirely based around Tom Holland as Peter Parker. (But do keep my lack of knowledge in mind, I tried my best!) 
> 
> This is my absolute favorite headcanon that needed more stories on AO3 - Peter Parker is a Trans Boy!


End file.
